Desert Warrior Review: Anthony Mackie leads an attempt at an epic blockbuster financed by Saudi Arabia

Plot: Set in seventh-century Arabia, amongst the constant feuding between tribes, the ruthless Emperor Kisra wishes to make Princess Hind his concubine. However, she refuses and instead, with the help of a legendary bandit, looks to confront the Emperor, culminating in the Battle of Ze Qar.

Review: Of the major movie hubs around the world, Saudi Arabia is not a country that comes to mind. But the extremely wealthy nation has been trying to break into the market for quite some time and has invested substantially to lure productions to the Middle East. Their big push to prove they can hold their own alongside Hollywood arrives in the form of Desert Warrior. Filmed in 2021 for a budget of $150 million, Desert Warrior features Marvel star Anthony Mackie with Rise of the Planet of the Apes director Rupert Wyatt behind the camera. Featuring lush photofgraphy and an epic scale, Desert Warrior has had a tumultuous path to the big screen and finally arrives this weekend courtesy of Vertical. The result is a visually impressive film that fails to be more than a generic effort in every other way.

The first thing to know about Desert Warrior is that, despite his central place in the trailers and marketing materials, Anthony Mackie is not the main character. Portraying a rogue thief called Bandit, Mackie takes on the role of the savior who comes to help the underdog win the war in countless historical epics. Despite disappearing for segments of the film, Mackie does hold a prominent place in the cast, but the central figure, the title character, is actually Princess Hind. Played by Aiysha Hart, Hind and her father, King Numan (Ghassan Massoud), are rescued early in the film by Bandit from soldiers of Emperor Kisra (Ben Kingsley) who has subjugated the Arabian tribes and taken all of their princesses as his concubines. Bandit gets Hind and her father to the safety of another tribe and raises the ire of Kisra’s commander, Jalabzeen (Sharlto Copley). Demanding his property to be returned, Jalabzeen and the Emperor’s army face off against the disparate Arabian tribes united under the leadership of Hind.

There are moments watching Desert Warrior that will remind you of the movies, or at least the style of filmmaking, that inspired Rupert Wyatt. Filming in Neom, Saudi Arabia, affords the film a jaw-dropping landscape of desert and rocky formations that evokes everything from Lawrence of Arabia to Dune and requires virtually no special effects to augment the scale of that region. Most of the production values are in the costumes and villages, with a brief look at the city where Emperor Kisra resides, which serves as the most complex set in the film. So much of Desert Warrior takes place in small communities or vast desert battlefields which gives Rupert Wyatt and cinematographer Guillermo Garza a playground of beautiful vistas to include. At times, Desert Warrior feels like a travel video to entice visitors and future film productions to Saudi Arabia, which seems to be the movie’s primary goal. Because if you dig into the screenplay, there isn’t much depth to this story, inspired by a true tale.

Saudi Arabia is not exactly known for its human or gender rights, which makes it surprising how diverse Desert Warrior is. Anthony Mackie, affecting a vague accent, is the sole American in the cast, alongside British, Turkish, Palestinian, Hungarian, and Tunisian actors in the primary ensemble. South African Sharlto Copley plays the villainous Jalabzeen, a European indebted to the Emperor, whose subjugation explains why there are so many ethnicities in the world at the time. It is also surprising at how feminist Desert Warrior is with Princess Hind uniting tribes led by men to go against the Emperor enslaving women to be his concubines. Since women’s rights are notoriously limited, it could be that the long post-production issues this film endured, including disagreements between producers and Rupert Wyatt, stem from the subject matter being a bit too liberal for the conservative Saudi Arabian backers.

What keeps Desert Warrior from living up to its visual spectacle is the overly generic script. Written by Rupert Wyatt and Erica Beeney from a story by David Self, Desert Warrior offers minimal character development for anyone in the cast. Ben Kingsley’s role is limited to a single scene in which he doesn’t even stand up. We learn almost nothing about Anthony Mackie’s Bandit and Princess Hind somehow persuades multiple tribal leaders to unite behind her without really doing much of anything. The most nuanced aspect of the story involves Sharlto Copley’s Jalabzeen, who hesitates briefly after a brutal introduction meant to signal his waning allegiance. None of this is strong enough to buoy the nearly two hour running time that concludes with a battle sequence meant to rival Lord of the Rings. This scene, inspired by the historical battle known as the War of the Camel’s Udder, has some impressive moments but almost comes undone due to the movie’s underwhelming CGI, including animated hyenas and war elephants.

With a score by Dan Levy that feels like a generic blend of themes from Interstellar and Dune, there is a lot in Desert Warrior that is meant to be homage but comes across as derivative. The horse-and-camel chase scenes through valleys and rock formations are pretty to look at, and Rupert Wyatt’s skill as a filmmaker comes through multiple times, but his vision cannot overcome the by-the-numbers plot that lacks anything beneath the surface. It is a shame that this amount of money was wasted on what is barely more than a commercial for potential shooting locations in a region of the world seeking more business. At best, Desert Warrior shows that Saudi Arabia can support Hollywood-caliber productions, but it will require better writers to make the finished product more than a moving painting.

Desert Warrior opens in theaters on April 24th.